My childhood was like a dream; the most beautiful time of my life,' says Italian designer Alvise Orsini, recalling his idyllic upbringing in Venice. 'Even as a small boy, I was conscious of the extraordinary quality and variety of the city's architecture.' After leaving school, Alvise progressed to the city's University Institute of Architecture. 'Since then I have travelled widely, but for me Venice will always remain the most beautiful city on earth,' he says. 'It is unique and I consider myself fortunate to have been born a Venetian.' Nevertheless, in his early twenties, Alvise decided to leave home. 'I needed to gain experience elsewhere, as Venice is really too small for there to be many opportunities for a designer or an architect. But it was once I'd left that I really began to appreciate how special Venice is.'

Alvise moved to Paris, where his first job in an art gallery led to his meeting the designer Jacques Garcia. 'He had a huge influence on me and encouraged me to design interiors. His concept of space, volume and architectural elements is second to none, and the bold, skilful way he uses colour is legendary,' enthuses Alvise.

Since establishing his own design practice some years ago, Alvise has lived in London, but the timeless elegance and understated opulence of his own duplex apartment illustrates his Venetian roots. 'I already had a home in London that I liked,' he recalls, 'but one day, browsing through a property magazine, I saw photo­graphs of a flat showing original, Robert Adam-style plasterwork and a magnificent eighteenth-century chimneypiece. I called up straight away, but was told that the flat was already sold, so I forgot all about it. Then, six months later, I saw the flat re-advertised and immediately came to see it. My love affair with the house, the apartment and the neo­classical interior began as soon as I walked through the front door - it was simply meant to be. I like to think that objects and houses have a soul and, although the flat was very tired and had undergone many insensitive alterations, I felt that it was crying out to be rescued and restored in a fitting manner.' Alvise bought the property on the spot.

Advertisement

Situated in a central-London square developed during the early part of the nineteenth century, the neoclassical house, which dates from around 1800, was converted into four units soon after World War II. Beyond the communal entrance hall is a flight of stairs leading up to the front door of Alvise's apartment; step through, and it's as if you have travelled back in time. Against a backdrop of polished mahogany, gilded mouldings, gleam­ing mirrors and sparkling cut glass is a collection of museum-quality furniture, paintings and objets d'art. But there is nothing museum-like about the atmosphere, which resonates with warmth and comfort.

'When I first saw it, it looked very different,' remembers Alvise. 'It was extremely run down and the front half of the reception room was all that remained of the original layout. There was a partition wall between the front and back sections of the room, with a horrible cloakroom squeezed into a corner of what is now the dining area.' He shudders at the memory. However, after two years of painstaking restoration work, he is delighted with the result.

'What I loved about the flat was the feeling of light, the fine propor­tions, and that it was a duplex with a section of the original mahogany staircase leading up to the bedrooms and bathrooms,' Alvise explains.'Naturally, I wanted to retain those features, but also to reinstate as far as possible the original layout in the reception room, along with the neo­classical decoration and plasterwork, most of which was missing or badly damaged.' Although he has furnished the apartment with a fine collec­tion of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English and Continental antiques, Alvise doesn't sacrifice the comforts and conveniences of mod­ern life. 'The services of a home need to be sound, in order to make it function smoothly and effortlessly. It has to look pretty, but also needs to work well; although my bathrooms look as if they've been there for ever, everything works in a twenty-first-century way. There's lots of hot water, good water pressure, power showers, steam ... it's all there,' he says. Details, such as underfloor heating, also made a huge difference to the finished effect. 'Radiators were not part of the original decorative scheme,' Alvise points out.

Advertisement

Alvise was helped in his efforts by talented Italian craftsmen Mike and Massimo from Historic Interiors. 'They took such pride in their work,' he recalls. 'There were still fragments of the original plasterwork behind the mirror and above the fireplace, so they made moulds to reproduce them, and by scraping through layers of paint, they revealed the original gilding and remnants of the nineteenth-century paint colour.'

Another piece of the jigsaw fell into place when Alvise discovered, while trawling through volumes of Robert Adam's designs for decorative schemes, the original design for the mirrors and the plasterwork that sur­rounded them. 'I had a feeling of pure excitement when I saw those designs and realised I had a perfect example in my apartment,' he says.

While the lower floor was restored to its original layout, the floor above was completely reconfigured, creat­ing space for two bedrooms and bathrooms and plentiful storage for clothes and laundry. There was no fine plasterwork to restore, but a considerable amount of work went into creating a suite of rooms that would reflect Alvise's passion for period detail and materials. In the spare bathroom, which Alvise likens to being inside a mirrored cabinet, William Grantham painted climbing roses across the Baccarat-glass walls and ceiling to soften the effect of the reflective surface. In keeping with the oriental theme, several hand-painted rolls of rice paper were created for the walls of the adjacent room to match two eighteenth-century Chinese panels acquired at an auction at Woburn Abbey. 'It's impossible to tell the difference,' remarks Alvise.

When not in London, Alvise trawls the salerooms and antiques shops of Paris, Naples, Aleppo or Venice. 'I like to furnish my home and those of my clients by mixing styles and periods - mainly English, French and Italian, with some more exotic pieces added here and there. I like homes that have texture; that make you think they have come together over gen­erations rather than a few months. Sourcing is so important - otherwise anyone can say they are a designer. Clients generally come to me because they like the classical style, but they often ask me to interpret it in a more modern way. Having a historical and architectural background has given me the confidence to develop my own style and taste, but I always try to create a scheme that complements the house and suits the occupants too. It's always a challenge,' he says with a smile. Judging by Alvise's own home, it's a challenge he can easily cope with.

By taking scrapings of the gilding and paintwork, and making moulds of the original plasterwork, it was possible to replicate the Georgian neoclassical decoration of the reception room; the Louis XVI vide-poche mahogany and ormolu table in the foreground is flanked by a pair of early-nineteenth-century English mahogany chairs bought in a Paris saleroom; in front of the window is a pair of early-nineteenth-century Anglo-Indian silver armchairs, acquired in Udaipur.

The Louis XVI cut-glass chandeliers came from a Versailles antiques dealer; the Aubusson rug is early nineteenth century; the eighteenth-century sofa, bought at Christie's, is covered in a Bevilacqua silk from Alton Brooke; French and Moghul silver is displayed on an eighteenth-century Chippendale-design table.

The walls and ceiling of the spare bathroom are lined with mirror reclaimed from the Baccarat showroom in Paris, which was being refurbished. The Baguès rock-crystal sconces date from the Thirties and were sourced from a dealer at the Olympia Fine Art and Antiques Fair.